It isn’t everyday you get Happy Birthday sung to you by one of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers but in December, during his show with Joe Sorge called Kitchen Table Companies #KTCO , Chris Brogan sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish. I really appreciated the gesture as it was something unexpected and with Raul sending him a message, he gave a great performance.

Top 10 of Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers on Forbes

Since CIMA is a Strategic Partner with Chris Brogan’s company called Human Business Works, we were elated to read that author Haydn Shaughnessy , Forbes contributor, compiled a list of Social Media users because he wanted to analyze what these people write about and the following they have when it comes to Social Media. Feel free to read the article in the link above.

Congratulations to Chris for being named number one on the list. If you have ever heard Chris on KTCO, gone to a conference to hear him speak, or read his blog posts, then you know that he genuinely connects with people.

A bit more than a year ago I wrote a post regarding the lessons I learned from reading Ricky Martin’s Biography Me.

A few weeks ago the Ricky Martin Web team found the post and shared it via their twitter account.

There was a request to have it translated which I have done and posted on here our corporate blog since their might be a few lessons regarding community building and this site also supports multi-language posts.

Every day, users of platforms like Twitter and Facebook receive messages that contain malicious links and malware that can sacrifice your privacy and also spread malware via networks and computers.

My experience as a security advisor makes me even more careful with many of these malicious messages sent via a public or private channel.

They usually use three factors to identify whether a message is malicious or not:

Language of Message

Only a small part of my contacts send me messages in both English and Spanish. When I receive a message in English of a person who usually communicates with me Spanish it automatically raises my suspicion. So I normally analyze and review the message with more detail. If I have another way of communicating what that person, I try to communicate via another channel to verify if that person did intend to send me a link or message.

Unusual message with a shortened link

In many cases, people who send malicious links use url shorteners to mask them. If you find a message that is completely off topic be extra careful when clicking the link. The best way to see if the link is safe is to visit one of many tools available to validate if a link is malicious or not.

A message that spikes your Curiosity

Most messages that have a malicious link, are those that offer unique information that triggers curiosity. These are the most dangerous because they use phrases which make shut down your thought process very easily and you feel like just clicking on the link. Examples of phrase I’ve seen are:

“I found this article which speaks negatively of you and your company”

“I found these embarrassing pictures of you here”

“I want you to share these private images”

There are multiple ways to identify when you receive a message that could be malicious. But most importantly, tell your contact what happened, as soon as you notice unusual activity.

If in case you see that the user is unknown or looks like a spammer please contact the security team of the platform/

Similar to how you go should be alert, in the virtual world you need to be as alert to identify any threats and not let them expose any of your vulnerabilities.

Any other advice on how you can further detect these situations and what to do?

Google had planned to implement their business version of Google+ in a few months. They had asked companies to wait on that phase before they created business profiles.

As we found out via mashable this week, Christian Oestlien, group product manager at Google wrote in a blog that they would be accelerating the program for use even earlier.

If you read the post you have until today July 15 to register your business, although it seems that the form has been turned off as of this post.

If you need more information regarding Google Plus for Business use, feel free to take a look at Christian’s other post where he explained Google’s stance on business users until the next phase.

If you are not in the selected bunch of users who will test phase, I recommend you to build the business on the personal side by creating relationships and really caring about those people you interact with online. Communicating as an individual can lead to healthy business opportunities for the company you own or represent. It can also extend the relationship into a positive perception of the brands you represent.

A good example was Morgan Johnston from Jetblue using it to convey a special deal from his personal account.

Not only will people identify with you as a person, but they will also identify with your company because they know you as a person not as a logo.

I see many benefits of Google + so it is key for any smart business to stay up to date and once it is available, I highly recommend you to sign your business up.